Author: Malachi Thompson / Source: Lifehack
Whether you are an entrepreneur, business owner or work for someone else, staying productive to reach the top of your game does not have to be a constant challenge. The secret to success is not so much a secret after all.
When you grow a strong grip on what inspires and motivates you as well as what throws you off course, your honed ability to harness your productivity can only set you on the path for success.
Increasing your productivity like the Elon Musks and Richard Bransons of the world can be surprisingly simple. Here are 22 of the ways they do it:
1. Be emotionally connected to clear goals
Clarity is a must-have ingredient to being productive. Leading marketing consultant, speaker and best-selling author Simon Sinek explains in his book Start With Why that in deciding between manipulation or inspiration as stronger influences of human behavior, inspiration is more powerful and sustainable.
When you have an emotional connection to your goals, you become better at searching for the means to achieve them.
2. Revisit goals daily
Dedicate time each morning before your day starts to review your goals. Stop, think and ask yourself:
“Regardless of whether or not my days are great or challenging, do I still feel emotionally connected to this?”
Look for an underlying, resounding ‘yes’ and a physical, positive shift of excitement. If you feel this, then your productivity will be greater than if you are forcing yourself to work for a purpose that does not give you a mental nor emotional return on investment.
3. Use visualization to reach targets sooner
Thomas Edison envisioned the concept of the light globe and eventually turned his imagined idea into reality.
Much research has shown that physical performance is greatly improved when the time is taken to engage in carefully constructed imagery and visualization that ignites the human senses.Functional MRIs now showing our brains don’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined. This helps us realize that using visualization techniques can accelerate the efficiency and quality of our work in more focused ways without the same amount of physical effort.
Instead of just imagine what you might have for lunch, direct your daydreaming toward what you want to achieve, experience and feel from your efforts!
4. Re-prioritize throughout your day
In the best-selling book The One Thing, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan advise that by asking yourself constantly:
“What is the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
Your activity will be focused and aligned to meeting your goals. You will spend far less time losing energy to distractions which take you off course.
5. Create a daily today list, not a to-do list
Being busy does not necessarily mean you are productive. Having a long to-do list can sometimes be quite de-motivating.
Tony Schwartz, CEO of the Energy Project, advises starting each day with one key task and ensuring that completing it (or making good progress on it) moves you toward achieving your goals.
Should the first task be complete early on in your day, move on to the second and third activity. However, if you still don’t complete that one task, start the next day with completing it. Only move on to the next task when you have completed the present one.
6. Get up early
We don’t all have time or capacity to do a 5km run at 5am, however, research shows the morning is the best time to set your framework for a productive day. Our minds are freshest at this time of day.
Before anything else, dedicate time to review your goals, your key priorities for the day, exercise and nourishing your body.
Top performers allocate their first few hours to projects relevant to their top priorities and delay meetings and appointments until later. The satisfaction alone of seeing what you have accomplished before 10am alone helps you sustain a greater level of productivity throughout the day even though your energy levels may start to wane.
7. Fuel your body according to your activity
Your body is your engine room, so it makes sense to fuel it for the performance you want it to achieve.
Twenty-three time’s Olympic gold-medal winner Michael Phelps does not eat the same carbohydrate-rich diet in offseason as when he’s competing.
Whilst you may not be an elite athlete, applying this mindset approach might mean increasing your intake of nutrient-dense, low glycaemic food at planned intervals according to your day’s schedule.
8. Treat your mind like an asset
Top performers know their mindset and mental health are the cornerstones that dictate their productivity. They guard their exposure to energy-draining circumstances, people and media, and carefully choose activities and events which are soul-enriching, energizing and relevant to their goals and purpose.
Because they have a strong sense of purpose, they choose reading material, networking and personal growth opportunities that help them grow through the challenges they are facing at those points.
9. Surround yourself with productive people
Identify and surround yourself with people who talk less and do more. Even if those people fail and make mistakes more but still make progress, they are improving and are much more likely to get the results they seek.
This goes beyond simply reading about what top performers do and socializing with those you identify as top performers.
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